The Ring of Solomon Read online

  She rose at last and, reaching up to the high shelf set into the wall, brought down a wooden chest, plainly adorned with the symbol of the midday sun. Placing the chest heavily upon the bed, she knelt beside it, cast off the lid, and took from within the five silver daggers that rested there. They glinted in the lantern light as she picked them up, one after another, inspecting the edges, testing the weight. She set them neatly side by side upon the bed.

  Balancing easily on the balls of her feet, she squatted low, reached beneath her bed and drew out her travelling cloak, her leather shoes and – this required an awkward moment or two of grappling in the remotest corners – a large leather drawstring bag, dusty with disuse.

  Asmira emptied the contents of the bag upon the floor: two large, roughly folded cloths, oddly stained and charred; several candles; two lighting flints and tapers; an oil lamp; three pots sealed with wax; and eight small weights of carven jade. She considered the items a while as if in hesitation, then shrugged, returned them to the bag, stuffed the silver daggers after them, tightened the drawstrings and stood up.

  Time was passing swiftly; the priestesses would be gathering in the forecourt to perform their summons, and she still had to visit the temple to get the Blessings of the Sun.

  But she was ready. Her preparations were complete, and she had no one to say goodbye to. Unstrapping her sword, she laid it on the bed. Then she put on her shoes, picked up her cloak and shouldered the bag. Without a backward glance she left the room.

  6

  High above the Earth the phoenix soared, a noble bird much like an eagle, save for the reddish tint to its golden feathers and the iridescent flecks on the tips of its outstretched wings. It had a crest the colour of brass, claws like hooks of gold, and jet-black eyes that looked forward and back across eternity.

  It also had a narked expression and was carrying a quarterton of artichokes in a big string net.

  Now, the great weight wasn’t the only thing that annoyed me about this job. The early start had been a pain in the plumage too. I’d had to set off shortly after midnight to get from Israel to the northern coast of Africa, where the finest wild artichokes grew, just so (and here I quote the specific terms of my charge) I could ‘pick the juiciest specimens in the crystal dews of dawn’. I ask you. As if it made a blind bit of difference.

  Digging up the wretched things had been tiresome enough as well – I was going to have soil stuck beneath my claws for weeks – and carrying them back fifteen hundred miles into a mild headwind hadn’t been a picnic either. But I could cope with all this. What really stuck in my fiery craw was the amused chuckles and wry expressions I was getting from my fellow spirits as I neared Jerusalem.

  Grinning broadly, they flitted past me through the air, splendid and warlike, carrying their shimmering spears and swords. They were off hunting for brigands in the desert wastes – a decent mission worthy of the name. Me? I trundled slowly north with my bag of groceries, wearing a forced smile and muttering salty insults under my breath.1

  I was being punished, you see, and it frankly wasn’t fair.

  Ordinarily, when you kill a magician with a bit of honest trickery and escape back to the Other Place, you’re likely to be left in peace for a while. A few years pass by, maybe a decade or two, and then finally another avaricious chancer who’s learned a bit of old Sumerian and worked out how to draw a pentacle without too many wonky lines will locate your name, summon you back, and start your slavery anew. But at least when that happens, the rules are clear, and tacitly acknowledged by both parties. The magician forces you to help him get wealth and power,2 and you do your best to find a way to nobble him.

  Sometimes you succeed; more often than not, you don’t. It all depends on the skill and judgement of both sides. But it’s a personal duel, and if you score a rare victory over your oppressor, the last thing you expect is to be brought back instantly and punished for that victory by someone else.

  Yet that was exactly the way things worked in Solomon’s Jerusalem. Not twenty-four hours after devouring the old magician and departing his tower with a burp and a smile, I’d been summoned back to another tower further along the city wall. Before I could so much as open my mouth to protest, I’d been raddled with a Spasm, Whirled, Pressed, Flipped and Stretched, and finally given a good hard Stippling for my trouble.3 You might think after all that I’d have been given a moment to pass a few acerbic remarks, but no. An instant later I found myself packed off on the first of many degrading missions, all specifically designed to break my carefree spirit.

  It was a depressing list. First I was sent to Mount Lebanon to chip blue ice from its summit, so the king’s sherbets would be nicely chilled. Next I was ordered to the palace granaries to count the grains of barley for the annual stocktaking. After that I was employed in Solomon’s gardens to pluck dead leaves from the trees and flowers, so that nothing brown or shrivelled might offend the royal eye. There then followed an unpleasant two days in the palace sewers, over which I draw a slightly soiled veil, before a taxing expedition in search of a fresh roc’s egg for the royal household’s breakfast.4 And now, if all that wasn’t enough, I’d been saddled with this current artichoke-fest, which was making me a laughing stock in the eyes of my fellow djinn.

  None of this broke my spirit, naturally, but it didn’t half make me irritable. And you know who I blamed it all on? Solomon.

  Not that he was the one who summoned me, of course. He was much too important for that. So important, in fact, that in the three long years I’d spent enslaved in the city, I’d scarcely set eyes on him. Though I’d hung about the palace a fair bit, exploring its mile-wide maze of halls and pleasure gardens, I’d only once or twice seen the king in the distance, surrounded by a gaggle of squalling wives. He didn’t get out much. Apart from his daily councils, to which I wasn’t invited, he passed most of his time cooped up in his private apartments beyond the northern gardens.5 And while he lolled about up there, pampering himself, day-to-day summonings were delegated to his seventeen top magicians, who dwelt in the towers strung along the city walls.

  My previous master had been one of the Seventeen, and my new master was also – and this, in a nutshell, was proof of Solomon’s power. All magicians are by nature bitter rivals. When one of them is killed, their instinct is to rejoice. In fact they’re more likely to summon up the offending djinni to shake him heartily by the claw than to work any punishment upon him. But not in Solomon’s Jerusalem. The king treated the demise of one of his servants as a personal slight, and demanded retribution. And so it was that – against all laws of natural justice – here I was, enslaved again.

  Scowling furiously at my misfortunes, I drifted onwards in the warm dry winds. Far below me my fiery shadow flitted over olive groves and barley fields, and dropped and skimmed down steep terraces of fig. Stage by stage Solomon’s little kingdom rolled beneath me, until in the distance I saw the rooftops of his capital, scattered like glittering fish scales on its hill.

  A few years previously Jerusalem had been a dowdy little town, not especially notable, and certainly not to be compared with capitals such as Nimrud, Babylon or Thebes. Now, it vied with those ancient cities as a place of wealth and splendour – and the reason for this wasn’t hard to guess.

  It was all about the Ring.

  The Ring. That was at the heart of it all. That was why Jerusalem flourished. That was why my masters jumped at Solomon’s command. That was why so many magicians congregated around him in the first place, like bloated fleas on a leper’s dog, like moths around a flame.

  It was thanks entirely to the Ring he wore upon his finger that Solomon enjoyed his life of indolence, and Israel its unparalleled prosperity. It was thanks to the Ring’s sinister reputation that the once-great empires of Egypt and Babylon now kept their wary distance, and watched their frontiers with anxious eyes.

  It was all about the Ring.

  Personally speaking, I hadn’t actually seen this benighted artefact close up – but then
again, I hadn’t needed to. Even from a distance, I understood its power. All magical objects emit an aura, and the more powerful they are, the brighter that aura is. Once, when Solomon had passed me in the distance, I’d briefly checked the higher planes. The flow of light made me cry out in pain. Something on his person glowed so fearsomely he was almost blotted out. It was like staring into the sun.

  From what I’d heard, the thing itself wasn’t actually much to look at – just a gold band inlaid with a single gem of black obsidian. But stories said it contained a spirit of supreme power, who was brought forth whenever the Ring was turned upon the finger; merely touching the Ring, meanwhile, summoned a retinue of marids, afrits and djinn to serve the wearer’s will. In other words it was a portable gateway to the Other Place, through which almost unlimited numbers of spirits could be drawn.6

  Solomon had access to this awful power on a moment’s whim, and without personal danger. The usual rigours of the magician’s trade were unknown to him. No fiddling with candles or getting chalky knees. No chance of getting fried, roasted or plain old eaten. And no chance either of being murdered by rivals or discontented slaves.

  In one place a slight scratch was said to mar the Ring; this was where the great marid Azul, taking advantage of an ambiguity in his master’s phrasing, had attempted to destroy it while carrying Solomon by carpet from Lachish to Beth-zur. Azul’s petrified form, worn ever thinner by the desert winds, now stood in lonely isolation above the Lachish road.

  Earlier in his reign two other marids, Philocretes and Odalis, had also tried to slay the king. Their subsequent careers were similarly melancholy: Philocretes became an echo in a copper pot and Odalis a startled face etched into a floor tile in the royal bathroom.

  Many such stories were told about the Ring, and it was no surprise that Solomon lived a cushy life as a result. The sheer power and dread exerted by that scrap of gold upon his finger kept all his magicians and their spirits nicely in line, thank you. The threat of its use hovered over us all.

  Noon came; my journey was at an end. I crossed high above the Kidron Gate, above the teeming markets and bazaars, and finally swung low over the palace and its gardens. In these last few moments my burden felt particularly heavy, and it was fortunate for Solomon that he wasn’t at that moment promenading along his gravel walkways. If I’d seen him, I’d have been sorely tempted to zoom down and offload my cargo of ripe artichokes directly on his preening head, before chasing his wives into the fountains. But all was still. The phoenix continued sedately towards its appointed landing site: namely a scrappy compound at the back end of the palace, where sour smells rose from the slaughtering sheds, and the gates to the kitchens were always open.

  I descended swiftly, dropped my burden to the ground and alighted, taking the form of a handsome youth as I did so.7

  A band of imps scampered forward, ready to carry my net towards the kitchen. Stalking alongside came a plump djinni overseer, long papyrus scrolls in hand.

  ‘You’re late!’ he exclaimed. ‘All banquet deliveries were due by noon!’

  I squinted at the heavens. ‘It is noon, Bosquo. Look at the sun.’

  ‘Noon is precisely two minutes gone,’ the djinni said. ‘You, sir, are late. However, we will overlook it just this once. Your name?’

  ‘Bartimaeus, bringing artichokes from the Atlas Mountains.’

  ‘A moment, a moment … We have so many slaves …’ The djinni took a stylus from behind his ear and buried himself in his scrolls. ‘ – Alef … – Bet … Where’s the scroll? These modern languages … there’s no logic to them … Ah, here …’ He looked up. ‘Right. Yes. Name again?’

  I tapped a sandal upon the ground. ‘Bartimaeus.’

  Bosquo consulted the scroll. ‘Bartimaeus of Gilat?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bartimaeus of Tel Batash?’

  ‘No.’

  The scroll was unfurled still further. There was a long pause. ‘Bartimaeus of Khirbet Delhamiyeh?’

  ‘No. Where in Marduk’s name is that? Bartimaeus of Uruk, also known as Sakhr al-Jinni, famous confidant of Gilgamesh and Akhenaten, and – for a time – Nefertiti’s most trusted djinni.’

  The overseer looked up. ‘Oh, it’s djinn we’re talking about? This is the foliot list.’

  ‘The foliot list?’ I gave a cry of rage. ‘What are you holding that for?’

  ‘Well, to look at you— Oh, hush. Don’t make such a squalling. Yes, yes, I have located you now. You are one of Khaba’s troublemakers, are you not? Trust me, your long-departed glories will count for little with him!’

  Bosquo broke off to issue orders to the imps, while I restrained the urge to swallow him, scrolls and all. I shook my head grimly. The only good thing about the whole embarrassing exchange was that no one else had witnessed it. I turned away –

  ‘Hello, Bartimaeus.’

  – to find myself standing face-to-face with a stocky, potbellied Nubian slave. He was bald of head and red of eye, and sported a leopard-skin skirt with a large machete tucked in the waistband. He also wore seven ivory torcs about his thick bull-neck, and a familiar expression of sardonic mirth.

  I winced. ‘Hello, Faquarl.’

  ‘There you are, you see,’ the djinni Faquarl said. ‘I still recognize you. Your ancient greatness is not yet quite forgotten. And do not give up hope. Perhaps one day the Ballad of the Artichokes will be sung about the hearth-fires too, and your legend will live on.’

  I scowled at him. ‘What do you want?’

  The Nubian indicated over his swarthy shoulder. ‘Our delightful master requires the whole company to assemble on the hill behind the palace. You’re the last to arrive.’

  ‘The day just keeps getting better and better,’ I said sourly. ‘All right, let’s go.’

  The handsome youth and the short, squat Nubian walked together across the yard, and those lesser spirits we met, observing our true natures on the higher planes, hopped hurriedly aside. At the rear gate, vigilant demi-afrits with flies’ eyes and the ears of bats noted our names and numbers, and checked our identities against further scrolls. We were ushered through, and presently came out on an area of rough ground on the edge of the hill, with the city shimmering below.

  Not far away six other spirits stood waiting in a line.

  My recent assignments having all been solitary ones, it was the first time I’d seen my fellow offending djinn together, and I scrutinized them closely.

  ‘As revolting a group of ne’er-do-wells as have ever been assembled,’ Faquarl remarked, ‘and that was before you arrived. Not just hideous, either. Each and every one of us has killed or maimed his previous master – or, in the case of Chosroes, roundly insulted her with the harshest possible language. We are a grim and dangerous company.’

  Some of the spirits, like Faquarl, I’d known and disliked for years; others were new to me. All had adopted human guises on the first plane, their bodies in more or less correct proportions. Most had muscular torsos and sculpted limbs, though none quite as sculpted as mine; one or two had chosen bandy legs and plump, protruding bellies. All were dressed in the simple, rough-spun skirts of the typical male slave.

  As we drew close, however, I noticed that even here each of the renegade djinn had subtly undermined his human shape by adding a small demonic detail. Some had horns peeping through their hair; others had tails, large pointed ears or cloven hooves. The insubordination was risky, but stylish.8 I decided to join in, and allowed two small ram’s horns to curl out on my brow. Faquarl, I noticed, had given his Nubian an elegant set of nicely filed fangs. Thus beautified, we took our places in the line.

  We waited; a hot wind blew upon the hilltop. Far to the west, clouds were massing above the sea.

  I shifted from foot to foot and yawned. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘is he coming or not? I’m bored, I’m knackered, and I could do with an imp. In fact I saw some back in the yard that wouldn’t be missed if we were quiet about it. If we got a little bag—’

  My n
eighbour nudged me. ‘Hush,’ he hissed.

  ‘Oh come on, what’s so bad about that? We all do it.’

  ‘Hush,’ he snapped. ‘He’s here.’

  I stiffened. At my side seven other djinn sprang to swift attention; we all stared glassily above our heads.

  A figure in black came up the hill, his shadow stretching long and thin behind him.

  1 Which I’m certainly not going to repeat here. Unlike some lesser djinn I could name, who rejoice in vulgarisms and inappropriate analogies, I’m a stickler for propriety. Always have been. Famous for it. In fact you could tattoo what I don’t know about good taste on the backside of a midget, assuming you hold him down hard enough to stop him squirming.

  2 Tomb-building, treasure-hunting, battle-fighting, artichoke-collecting … Outwardly different, maybe – but in the end all magicians’ demands boil down to wealth and power, whatever they might claim.

  3Spasms, Whirls, Stipples, etc.: punitive spells frequently employed to keep a healthy young djinni in line. Painful, tedious, usually non-fatal.

  4 Gourmet’s note: one roc’s egg, scrambled, feeds roughly 700 wives, provided you mix in a few vats of milk and a churn or three of butter. I had to whisk the thing as well, which gave me a sore elbow.

  5 It hadn’t always been that way, if you could believe the stories. Long-serving djinn reported that in the early years of his reign Solomon enjoyed regular banquets and masques and entertainments of every conceivable kind (though girning and juggling always featured prominently). Each night, garlands of imp-lights would illuminate the cypress trees, and roving spirit-globes bathed the palace in a thousand shifting colours. Solomon, his wives and courtiers would frolic upon the lawns while he worked wonders for them with his Ring. Times, it seemed, had changed since then.

  6 As well as all this the Ring was said to protect Solomon from magical attack, give him extraordinary personal allure (which possibly explained all those wives cluttering up the place) and allow him to understand the language of birds and animals. Not bad, in short, though the last one isn’t half as useful as you might expect, since when all’s said and done the language of the beasts tends to revolve around: (a) the endless hunt for food, (b) finding a warm bush to sleep in of an evening, and (c) the sporadic satisfaction of certain glands.* Elements such as nobility, humour and poetry of the soul are conspicuously lacking. You have to come to middle-ranking djinn for them. * Many would argue that the language of humankind boils down to this too.